Sonos One vs Echo Plus – Which is the Better Smart Speaker ?

Sonos One vs Echo Plus is a comparison that almost all of the Smart Speaker enthusiasts are on the look out for. This is so because both the Sonos One and Echo Plus offer a lot of comparable features including the Amazon Alexa.

Sonos One vs Echo Plus

Speaker

When it comes to Speaker output and sound quality, Sonos One wins hands down over the Echo Plus. Sonos One with its Class D Amplifiers and Custom Built drivers delivers loud, crisp, and clear sound. Create a stereo combination of two of these and you really do not need an extra pair of speakers in your living room or bed room. You can also set up stereo combinations by combining two echo plus devices but the stereo effect is more profound in case of Sonos.

Though the Echo Plus is said to come with powerful speakers, it does lag behind the Sonos One. For the echo plus, the speaker output is decent and good enough for normal music listeners but may not be preferred by core audiophiles.

Looks

Both the Sonos One and the Echo Plus share cylindrical shapes to aid the surround sound technology for the speaker outputs. However, the Sonos One looks a bit more premium and expensive (which it is) as compared to the Echo Plus. Sonos is wider, bigger and more eye catching when it sits there in your drawing room or bed room, whereas the Echo Plus hosts a more slim and compact structure. The compact structure of echo plus makes it easy to hold and carry.

Overall, Sonos One scores a little more than the Echo Plus when it comes to looks. This could again be subjective depending on the taste of the user. That being said, the 2nd generation of the Echo Plus looks much more premium than the first generation.

Alexa Support

Both the Sonos One and the Echo Plus are driven by Amazon Alexa. It is needless to say that Alexa is one of the most sought for Smart Assistants in the word owing to its intelligence as well as the wide coverage of Smart Device Support that it offers.

Now that both these smart speakers come fitted with the Alexa, the more prominent question here is that which one performs better. Since Echo Plus is built entirely over the Alexa , we could expect it to have a slight advantage compared over the Sonos One. One such parameter where Echo Plus scores slightly more than Sonos is in the reception of voice commands by Alexa. Better reception could be attributed to the presence of the array of seven microphones. Sonos One also comes with far field microphone arrays with noise cancellation.

Echo Plus | Source – Amazon

However, like the Echo Plus, you can use Sonos One to input your voice commands and pretty much do everything that the Echo Plus does.

Yet another catch here is that Sonos had recently rolled out the Sonos One Gen 2. The Gen 2 comes loaded with Bluetooth Low Energy, Increased Memory, and Faster Processor. Sonos says that these are added for the possible introduction of new features in the future. They could be thinking of integrating both the Google Assistant as well as the Alexa, or may even come with a Smart Assistant of their own. Hence, with the Sonos One, the future looks promising.

Pricing

There is a considerable difference in the price tags of the Sonos One and Echo Plus. The Sonos One ( Gen 2) is marked at $ 199 whereas you can get the Echo Plus, i.e. a difference of $100. You can still get the Sonos One (Gen 1) for $ 179.

Which Smart Speaker do you buy? Sonos One or Echo Plus

Though we highly recommend the Sonos One over the Echo Plus under any circumstances, the choice is highly subjective. If you are an audiophile whose is more interesting in the sound aspects of the speaker, Sonos One is the best pick for you. However, if you are more interested on exploring the capabilities of Alexa in Home Automation and have a budget to stick to, you can go for the Echo Plus.